D&D 5E Funny Solo Boss Creature for 1st Level?

[FormerlyHemlock]

Hopefully it would be an okay challenge to 5 1st level PCs.

Well, it depends on your PCs and what you want your game to be like. If I were in your shoes, I'd say: I like golems, and I like smart tactics, so I'll go with a clay golem gone berserk and threatening to sink the ship after an accidental explosion reduces its HP to to 40 and kills its creator. They could lure it off the edge of the ship, kill it to death with magic and/or with the adamantine spear which the creator kept around just in case, or heal it enough that it stops being berserk. The reason I like that is because 1.) it feels like a big, exciting event, 2.) it gives them lots of XP to boost them through the low levels; 3.) it rewards lateral thinking more than videogame hack-and-slash mentality while not excluding the latter completely. (If they try to fight it directly it will probably down or kill one, several, or all PCs, depending on various factors. But if they lure it off the edge of the ship and then swim to safety, it won't kill anybody. Although the sharks might.)

I think D&D is the most fun when you face level-inappropriate challenges, and I'd want new players to get that feel immediately.

 

[Saeviomagy]

A huge whale that flops up so it's on the deck.
A giant water strider.
A giant platypus.
An enormous floating ooze that the ship accidentally plows into - the fight can be all about hurriedly patching the ship so it doesn't sink, and fighting off bits of slime that make it through the hull.

 

[Lidgar]

1. A wolf hiding in a pile of apples.
2. A troupe of carnival people wearing sombreros neither hurrying nor tarrying.
3. A torphie.
4. and..(of course) a pair of flumphs!

 

[AmerginLiath]

Swarm of Flying Quippers

Dryad, bound improbably to the mast. Maybe make her the figurehead.


Cheers,
Roger

Use this one. It's brilliant. Keep in mind the details of the dryad's Treebound quality:

Treebound. Powerful fey will sometimes bind lesser fey spirits to trees, transforming them into dryads. This is sometimes done as a punishment when the fey spirit falls in love with a mortal and that love is forbidden.
A dryad can emerge from the tree and travel the lands around it, but the tree remains her home and roots her to the world. As long as the tree remains healthy and unharmed, the dryad stays forever youthful and alluring. If the tree is harmed, she suffers. If the tree is ever destroyed, the dryad descends into madness.

Imagine a dryad's tree was cut down and made into the mast of the ship of a man she loved – perhaps she even allowed him to do so. Of course, once that happens, she starts to suffer, she goes mad. The ship is effectively haunted by an insane fey who can charm the men aboard it. A dryad is herself a CR 1 creature, but you could tack on one of the caster templates at the back of the MM if you wanted that a bit higher. The key is that she effectively IS the ship, so killing her isn't an easy option without stranding everyone or sinking everyone. Victory might be a matter of weakening her carefully without structurally endangering everyone while basically talking her down – an interesting story could even be if the captain had moved on to another woman and now the dryad-as-ship was in danger of being effectively suicidal as well as homicidal!

 

[Quickleaf]

Awesome ideas! I laughed at the poop deck and the mimir crow's nest.

My suggestion is a hearth brownie bonded to the ship with lair actions allowing him to pop in and out of drawers, teleport to rigging, and reduce PCs and ensnare them in buckets of pickles, glass bottles of ships, the ship's scuttlebutt, drawers, etc. You could use a non-flying sprite with innate invisibility.

As an aside, if you click the link in my sig for Skull & Crossbones, it will take you to an index of my piratical resources which includes monster conversions suited to a seafaring encounter.

 

[Unwise]

Rybeck the ships cook? He has a slicked back pony tail and a shaded past.

 

[77IM]

My favorite way to make a level 1 boss is to take a CR1 monster, double its hit points, and give it a few CR 1/8 or 1/4 minions. That's a tough fight for most parties. Looking at the list of CR1 monsters, my favorites for "on a boat, but shouldn't be on a boat" are:

Animated Armor
Death Dog
Duergar
Faerie Dragon (young)
Fire Snake
Ghoul
Giant Spider
Giant Toad
Lion
Scarecrow
Thri-Kreen
Tiger